


Hidden In Ink

by Eustacia Vye (eustaciavye)



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-03
Updated: 2010-12-03
Packaged: 2017-10-13 12:26:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/137336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eustaciavye/pseuds/Eustacia%20Vye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur finds Ariadne's diary and a little more than he had been hoping for.</p><p>For the inception_kink prompt: <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/inception_kink/11941.html?thread=25538725#t25538725">One of them reads the other's journal. Anon's choice if it's a current or more embarrassing youthful one.</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Hidden In Ink

_I must be out of my mind. I should have left and not come back. I should have just taken the money and ran away._

Arthur almost put down the book, a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He had been looking for the sketches Ariadne had left behind and needed from her apartment. She had been in the middle of constructing the physical model of the level, too busy to go back and get the sketches herself. Arthur had volunteered to go back, as there was a lull in his own schedule. He had found the unassuming notebook within the stack of books on her desk, and her hurried scrawl had drawn his attention.

Knowing this was her diary, he couldn't look away.

 _I'm glad I didn't, though. This is more fascinating and involved than any firm I could have joined. Why bother with one building when I can recreate entire cities? I hate to be one of those kinds of girls that stick around for a man, but seeing him doesn't hurt either. :) I mean, dimples!!! Really beautiful eyes, slim fingers and strong hands. I keep wondering what's underneath the suits. I wonder what he'd be like if I peeled them all back. I don't see him as someone with piercings and tats. I wonder what he'd taste like?_

His hands were shaking a little. She thought of him this way? A quick check of the date on the entry told him it was even before the flight from Sydney to LA. She had been interested in him even before he had stolen a kiss under the guise of hiding from projections. It hadn't been a one sided infatuation, then.

Arthur bit his lip and looked down at the diary in his hands. He certainly would feel uncomfortable if she read _his_ journal, but he couldn't seem to put it away. He skipped forward in the journal, looking for his name. Most of the time she simply referred to his suits or his hands, or she lamented the lack of smiles while in training on the job.

 _It's sad, isn't it? Pretending that he holds me for more than balance? He caught me when I nearly fell out of the chair today. It's pathetic how much I wished he would just hold me and kiss me. I always used to make fun of those girls at school. What's the matter with me? It's not as if he looks at me that way._

Oh, Ariadne, he wanted to say. If only you knew.

Before he could stop himself, he took up one of her pens and turned to the back of the book, just after her latest entry. She was whining about the level she was building, how the sketches just didn't fit what she wanted to do with it. She was a perfectionist, and Eames was constantly teasing her for it. Arthur's eyes skipped over the last part of her latest entry. _I should just give this up. He's never going to look at me that way. I might as well just seal it off, tell myself it's for the good of the team, something like that. I can deal with this. Work to do._

Beneath it, he started writing in a neat, deliberate script. _I'm sorry, I shouldn't have read any of this. But I did want more from that kiss during the Fischer job. I did want more than just a touch against your hand. Maybe we still can?_

He put the book down in the center of her desk, where she wouldn't miss it in the slightest, and took the sketches with him to the warehouse.

***

Ariadne didn't catch it right away, but she did notice something odd about her desk out of the corner of her eye. She turned, frowning. She knew Arthur had been at her desk...

Her diary was sitting in the center of her desk, rather than hidden inside a pile of sketch pads and blank notebooks she used to take notes about jobs.

Heart pounding, she touched the cover of the book. Arthur had been at her desk. Arthur must have left it there for her to find, letting her know that he had read it. Oh, dear god, she had smiled at him and felt stupid about her crush and he had known all along. He had simply looked at her and nodded in all the right places, had touched her shoulder when she seemed tired and had offered to give her a massage. Had he been teasing her? Had he been yanking her chain?

Ariadne felt like crying or throwing the damn book across the room. How could he have done something like that?

It occurred to her as she grabbed her diary that it was placed so precisely. It was so very Arthur, to lay it out for her to find and not comment on it right away. The ribbon fell out of the book; usually she had it as a bookmark so she could find the blank pages to write in. Frowning, she flipped through the pages, wondering which ones Arthur had read. He hadn't been gone that long during the day, so he probably hadn't read the whole thing.

Her heart stuttered to a stop when she saw his handwriting in her diary. She fell into her desk chair, not really seeing it and sliding off of the edge onto the floor. Stunned, she kept staring at his writing.

 _Maybe we still can?_

He better not have been joking. She would kill him if he was.

Ariadne scrambled to her feet and found her cell phone. She hit Arthur's number on her speed dial, listening to it ring. He picked it up on the second ring. "Ariadne?" he asked, voice carefully neutral.

"I found your note," she said, voice quavering a little. She heard his sharp intake of breath. "Did you mean it?" she asked, hoping she didn't sound like some kind of psycho. "Please say you weren't joking."

"I wasn't joking," he said slowly, as if he was having trouble speaking. "I... I didn't know you felt that way."

"So now what?" Ariadne asked, her voice barely above a whisper. "Is this going to be awkward at work?"

He laughed a little. "More awkward than trying to look at each other and not get caught?"

Ariadne grinned in spite of herself. "Well, if you put it that way..."

"Do you want to meet somewhere?" he asked, and there was a hopeful note in his voice that Ariadne couldn't miss. He sounded so young suddenly, much less self assured than he always seemed on the job.

"Yeah. I'd like that."

He picked her up and brought her to a restaurant. Arthur would have looked unruffled to anyone that didn't know him well. The quick flicker of his eyes to her expression told her how nervous he was beneath his outward control. It made her feel a little bit better. "You know, this feels like a date," Ariadne commented.

"Is that a bad thing?" he asked in modulated tones.

She smiled and shook her head. "No, it isn't." He graced her with a wide smile, and she could see dimples in his cheeks. "I know I shouldn't have read your diary, but... I'm kind of glad I did. I wouldn't have known you felt that way otherwise."

"You never acted like that kiss meant anything. I thought it really was just a ruse for the projections."

Arthur gave her a rueful smile. "I think this means I was too subtle."

Ariadne snickered. "Maybe it was."

"Is this better?"

She reached forward and grasped his hand across the table, threading their fingers together. _"This_ is better." She smiled at him as he rubbed his fingers against hers.

"Do I want to know what you're going to write in your diary tonight?" Arthur teased her.

Ariadne laughed. "Want to make sure it's a good entry?"

"At least a few good ones."

"You know, I'm kind of glad you found my diary now." Her eyes twinkled as she looked at him. "It'll keep you on your toes knowing I write about you. But I'm definitely coming up with a better hiding place."

"Mine is online," Arthur admitted. "Sometimes I jot things down in my notebooks, but the longer entries are all online."

"Maybe you'll show me sometime," Ariade said with a teasing lilt.

"I guess we'll just have to make sure we each write good things about each other."

Ariadne lifted her wine glass slightly, beginning to make a toast. "To good beginnings, then."

Arthur tapped the edge of his glass against hers. "To good beginnings. May it last a lifetime."

It might have been a presumptuous statement, but it was one that made Ariadne flash him a loopy grin. "I like that."

"I was hoping you would." He laughed a little. "Not too subtle, was it?"

She laughed. "Just right, Arthur."

 

The End


End file.
